http://www.carbonneutral.com/

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 6 2007, 05:37 PM) [snapback]386344[/snapback]</div>

Well, I looked at the machine but there's no tag on the bottom. Of course I can't find the manual that came with it. One site for what appear to be an identical but overpriced version of this says "770 watts starting, 400 watts running for about 0.025 KWh per load". Another site discussing this exact model says max 330 watts at startup. Other sites say variously 300 watts and $3/year to run it. All of that sounds about right -- it starts up slowly, and the lights don't even flicker on a 20 amp circuit. I'll put a meter on it the next time I do laundry and report back if grossly different, but I'd guess 300 watts average.

I don't want to oversell this. It works as advertised. But its a bit finicky to get the load balanced, and it makes a racket if you don't get it balanced. But it's a normal part of our laundry now.

 

One of CarbonNeutral's products is "Magna-Fuel." Attach these magnets around your fuel line and fuel mileage can increase by up to 15%. Or so they say. I'm skeptical; it sounds like so much other automotive snake oil. And being skeptical of the product makes me skeptical of the company.

Having said that, I'm a skeptic who can be convinced with good data. They mention research but they don't specifically cite it or link it. Yes, I can search the web (and other sources), but if the research is that convincing, why not make it easily available?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JimboK @ Feb 8 2007, 07:44 AM) [snapback]386893[/snapback]</div>

I keep thinking I went to the wrong website -- finally checked out their "shop". Now I get it. Wow, they do themselves a serious disservice there. My understanding is that by far their main line of business is in serious attempts at creating and selling carbon offsets. Now I'm with you, maybe it's all baloney. Not only do they sell the bogus gas-saver magnet, but also the bogus toilet scale-reducing magnet. And $21 (15 pounds) for a full-spectrum CF bulb? But other items appear reasonable. Who can say. They ought to be more selective in what they sell.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Feb 8 2007, 04:35 AM) [snapback]386888[/snapback]</div>

Thanks. Either way it looks like it saves a metric butt load of electricity vs just drying the clothes in a standard dryer. I'd love to see your data though. Do you have a Kill-a-Watt or similar device?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 8 2007, 12:28 PM) [snapback]387037[/snapback]</div>

That was my take on it. Some energy savers are kind of mysterious. This one, you can see three quarts of water come out of the load of laundry. My quick calculation says it takes about 1.8 KWH to evaporate three quarts of water. So there you have it. That's about what it ought to save. A load a day would be 660 KWH/year, say $60 bucks/year here, which is jibes with all the other data I've seen (e.g., cost of running an electric dryer).

I'll put the kill-a-watt on it today and see what it takes to run the spin-dryer.

What I haven't done is literally perform the experiment with otherwise identical loads of laundry, measuring the drying time with and without the spin dryer. And of course the kill-a-watt won't work on the 220v dryer. If I get really bored this weekend I might try that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Feb 9 2007, 04:22 AM) [snapback]387358[/snapback]</div>

Cool. I wonder if evaporating the water out of a medium would be higher because the medium must absorb a fair amount of energy before the water will leave it. Even if not, this is a big saver of time and energy. I'm gonna have to buy a kill-a-watt. Does it act as a data logger and can you hook it up to your computer?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 9 2007, 11:47 AM) [snapback]387505[/snapback]</div>

I read the wattage yesterday -- 360 watts at startup, declining to 220 watts when running at speed. Total KWH for one run was too low for the meter to register (<0.01). A single run of the spindryer takes a minute or two.

The kill-a-watt is OK, but just OK, as an ammeter/kilowatthour meter. There's no data logging capability. Or maybe there's a deluxe model for that. The only real nicety is that it cumulates your KWH over time so you can (e.g.) plug in the fridge for a week and get the average KWH per day. And read instantaneous volts and amps, and time plugged in, and so on. And it's handy and easy to use, so I'll use it..

It wouldn't surprise me if it took more energy to get the water out of the clothing, but the number for 3 quarts of water to vapor was enough to convince me that all the other numbers were about right.

The spin dryer gives you the greatest advantage if your laundry tends to run to cottons and cotton blends. My wife now suggests that we not put (e.g.) polyester fleece garments in -- they don't absorb much water and they throw off the balance of the load because they are so light compared to the other wet clothing. But basically, all the stuff that's still damp halfway through the run of the regular dryer, that's where the spin dryer gives you the most help.

 

Wow, that's great. Well cotton/cotton blend pretty much describes most of our laundry. I've always removed stuff like fleece and polyester stuff. The regular spin cycle gets them pretty close to dry and here in CO they dry out very quickly anyways. If I put them in the dryer a.) they wear out sooner and b.) they just absorb heat and slow down the drying process for everything else. Our dryer does have a moisture sensor so we use that instead drying for a fixed amount of time. Having the spin dryer takes it to a new level though. If everyone used one of these we'd use a LOT less energy in this country. It seems that this would fall into the "low hanging fruit" category. Do you agree?

 

My clothes are pretty wrung by the time the spin cycle on the washer is done. In what way would putting them through an extra spin machine be better than putting them through spin again in the washer or just putting them in the dryer? If I wring them an not much comes out, how is this spinner going to get more out?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 11 2007, 03:53 PM) [snapback]388554[/snapback]</div>

That's a good question. I bought it on spec, not knowing whether it would work. When it squeezed a lot of water out of the clothes, I figured it worked. I didn't try running the regular spin cycle twice. I'll do the experiment if I find time to do it (and remember to do it).

In the meantime, here's two arguments in my favor.

One, as I understand it, it puts a LOT more force on the clothes, far more than a regular washing machine could, and pulls a slight vacuum on them to boot, to suck the water out.

But I never did figure out how much more force. I stopped when I got a lot of water.

But this is simple physics. Formula for centripedal force says force is proportional to RPM-squared times radius of spin. The spindryer spins at 3200 RPM. Wikipedia says a typical top loader spin speed is 600 RPM. The spindryer drum is 5" radius, my top loader's drum is 10" radius. Plug that in the formula and the centripedal force in the spin-dryger is 14x that of the washing machine.

Second, these are sold in Europe, by major appliance manufacturers, but in European voltages (so the major-label machines are no good here). So there's some demand for it, though whether they use it as I do (before the heated tumble dryer), I don't know.

Ah, but maybe this is best viewed as a cheap retrofit. I infer from the Wikipedia article that European washers are rated, among other things, in terms of spin efficiency. And that front-loaders (common in Europe) spin faster than top-loaders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine

So, maybe the Europeans wised up and decided to build in higher spin speeds. And maybe a spindryer is redundant if you have a front-loader with a large drum and high spin speed. If you had a 12" radius drum and 2000 RPM, you'd exert as much force on the laundry as my spindryer. That would be a pretty high-end washer I think. Looking at Wikipedia, no front loader spins that fast. For my washer existing top-loader, I'm sure the spin dryer gets the water out better than one pass through the spin cycle, and I'm pretty sure (but have not actually performed the experiment) that it gets out more than 2 passes because it exerts far more force on the laundry.

But maybe by the time I go for a new washer the spindryer will be redundant as large drum front-loaders wit high spin speeds will be the norm.

But on the bright side, I'll at least know what to look for. The dryer uses 3x as much energy as the washer (or so I read on various sites). Absent a spindryer I ought to be willing to pay a substantial premium for a higher spin speed, a la the European rating system.

In terms of Tripp's question on low-hanging fruit, yes, I think this is a good one. US DOE statistics say that clothes dryers consume more electricity, on average, than household lighting - about 1100 KWH per year for the dryer, versus about 950 KWH/year for lighting. ((I may be misreading that -- it may mean that in households with a clothes dryer, the dryer consumes more than the lighting. I'd have to go back to the DOE site to clarify that) I mean, a typical clothes dryer draws 5000 watts -- run that 5 days a week, one hour a day, and that's 1300 KWH. When I took the US averages from the DOE and customized them to just the appliances we own, I figured that something like 13% of our annual electricity demand was to run the dryer. Third in line, after AC and fridge. Shoot, with a new efficient fridge, it might even be second.

So, if the spindryer really cuts that in half, it's not as good as CF lights, but it's in that league. And my guess is that the payback period for me is under 3 years, which is pretty good as these things go.

Anyway, my summary is that a) it works for me, b) I think I know why it works (14x the force that my washer puts on the clothes), c) it may become obsolete as high spin speeds in front-loaders become standard, but d) until then I think it is a significant energy saver, as for the US as a whole electric clothes dryers consume a lot of household electricity. But e) I have not actually performed the experiment to see what two passes through the washing machine spin cycle will do, and if I can get motivated I will report back on that.

 

Okay. The RPM makes sense.

But the 5" diameter? How many clothes could I get in that? I'd have to run it several times to do one load of laundry from the washer.

I have a gas dryer, not an electric one. I'm wondering if it's worth the extra cost to buy and run?

 

My guess would be that a second spin cycle run would have very little benefit. The first run didn't get the remaining water out probably because there's not enough force to drive the remaining water out. The force exerted isn't going to change with a second running so you're not likely to gain much you'd just be wasting the energy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maggieddd @ Feb 4 2007, 03:30 PM) [snapback]385184[/snapback]</div>

It took me awhile, but I've had a look. I'm skeptical. The fuel thingy is outright bogus. The dryer thingies are expensive tennis balls, which work just as well at breaking up your dryer load. Even better, fluff the towels between the washer and dryer instead of tossing them in as lumps, and they'll dry faster. As for the whole carbon credit scam, I think we should be reducing our output, not planting trees only to offset our guilt. And I digress, but did you know that cotton production uses 25% of the world's pesticides?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 11 2007, 03:17 PM) [snapback]388573[/snapback]</div>

Well, if the dry cycle time is reduced I would think that your clothes would last longer. I'm assuming that the spindryer doesn't stress the clothes too much compared with a dryer. Seems reasonable but may not reflect reality. If it's true then there's some cost advantage that's separate from energy savings.

Seems like you might save time too, depending upon the situation.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 11 2007, 05:17 PM) [snapback]388573[/snapback]</div>

That's 5 inch radius, or 10 inch diameter. A full load of laundry had to be split into three batches for the spin dryer -- but the spin only takes a minute or two.

On the cost of a gas dryer, the answers on the internet are all over the map, which I think probably reflects variation in gas and electric prices over time and across areas. The US DOE seems to say something like half the cost for gas versus electric. If your gas and electric prices are near the national average, that would say your payback period is going to be double mine - call it six years or so.

 

I just tried to do the the two-spin-cycle test in the washing machine, but mine will only allow a reset to rinse and spin, not spin alone. The upshot is I can't do two consecutive spin cycles in my clotheswasher.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Feb 12 2007, 07:05 AM) [snapback]388832[/snapback]</div>

Well I think your centripetal force calculations would indicate that the washer's spin cycle doesn't apply enough force to drive the water out. You could run it 10 times and not wring much more water out. Too bad you couldn't verify it though.

According to Xcel Energy (our utility here in CO) doing 25 loads at 1 hour per load uses 106 kWh. For what that's worth.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 12 2007, 11:52 AM) [snapback]388905[/snapback]</div>

My bad english -- I mean that to be 1300 KWH per year, for 250 one-hour loads. Which is almost exactly what your utility says.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 11 2007, 04:53 PM) [snapback]388554[/snapback]</div>

I have an update on the use of the spin dryer with a modern front-loading washer.

Answer: you were right. The spin dryer gets no more water out of clothes that have been washed in a modern front-loading washer. A good front-loader gets them as dry as a spin dryer. So, a spin dryer is only useful if you have a top-loader.

I bought a Speed Queen front loader and dryer. I took a batch of clothes out of the washer, ran them through the spin-dryer, and literally got a few drops of water. Basically, nothing. So, the Speed Queen front loader, with 1000 RPM spin, gets the clothes at least as dry as the spin dryer.

For what it's worth, I bought a Speed Queen front loader after some significant research. Everybody says that front loaders are more efficient. So that's what I wanted. But there are a lot of appliance horror stories about them, even brands that I would otherwise have trusted (e.g., Sears Kenmore). They tend to break down more frequently (per Consumer Reports), they tend to vibrate violently, and a really large fraction of most models will require replacement of the main bearings that hold the tub after a relatively short time (typically 5 years). The European-made models appear better, but take a really long time to do a load of laundry. And I'd rather buy American made if possible anyway.

So I bought a Speed Queen, just like in the laundromat. Their main line of business is commercial machines, but they sell the same model as a home appliance. It was not the most efficient model available, but by the EPA rankings it was pretty close. Consumer Reports didn't even bother to review it, I suppose because Speed Queen is such as small share of the home market. Cost less than the European-made models, and as far as I can tell cost only slightly more than (e.g.) the comparable Kenmore.

I've only had it a couple of days, but it looks pretty good. Made in Wisconsin, three year full warranty (five on the bearings) versus a max of 1 year for anything else I looked at. It's built like the proverbial brick outhouse, must weigh twice what the old washer did. Lots of key parts are stainless steel. The controls are simple and obvious. Very quiet, and doesn't even shimmy when it does the spin cycle. Kind of reminded me of what American-made used to mean, or at least, what I imagine it used to mean.

Anyway, it has made my spin-dryer obsolete. And more to the point, I assume that any modern front-loader with a high spin speed would mean that a spin dryer would do nothing for you.

 

Chogan, thanks for the update. That's good info to know. Good to see you 'round again.